A Helping Hand
by gold sea glass
Summary: A twist on the life of Kagome and how she meets Inuyasha.


Disclaimer- I do not own Inuyasha

This is a repost, but hopefully, I made it less confusing

present

_dream/past_

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It was a dark, summer night when the incident happened. The dark was not necessarily a bad thing, in fact on most nights Kagome would sit on her window seat and stare out into the dark and listen to the crickets sing their sad song while watching the fireflies and their own way of expressing their emotions. She often wondered if the flickering of the firefly was random or if it had another, more significant meaning. Maybe its as simple as a greeting to one another or a form of courtship. _Then again _she thought _maybe I've got it all wrong and they just fly around aimlessly not even realizing that they gave off such an unearthly light. _She sighed and drew back from the window and, giving one last look at the fireflies, closed the window and crawled into bed.

ooooooo

_A young girl of 9 slowly walks through an old, run down neighborhood. Its easy to tell that at one time it had been a popular town because all the buildings were condensed together to make way for the once ever-growing town. Weeds choke the sidewalks and broken bottles and other trash now line the streets. As she passes the abandoned park, she trips on the sidewalk causing her old, ratty, school notebook to fall out of her hands. She sighed and picked it up. As she picked it up her too small sleeves pulled back revealing five bruises spaced out as if someone had grabbed her strongly enough to leave marks. The girl brushed off the snow and continued walking. It had not been a good day for her. First she had earned herself a black eye because she had "fallen" as she walked past Riumy's desk, then had failed her math test only because her sister had lost her only pencil and no one would let her borrow one. To top it all off she had slipped on an ice patch and everyone had laughed mercilessly at her. No it wasn't a good day for her. However, she had no idea how much worse that day would be. How that day will change her life forever and how that day would break her heart forever._

_oooooooo_

Ms. Higurashi crept quietly up the stairs to her daughter's room with a cup of milk and an extra blanket. She knew it was summer but she just liked to know that if Kagome needed the blanket, it would be there. As she passed Sota's room she heard the sound of snoring mixed with shooting noises. A small smile formed on her lips. Even though Sota insisted on staying up later because he was older, his body just wouldn't listen to him and would fall asleep at the same time as he would when he was younger. She would be up later with another blanket for her little boy. Finally, she got to Kagome's room and slowly opened her door. Her desk lamp was on, shining on a pile of unopened math books but Kagome herself was in bed, asleep. Another smile passed over her lips. Kagome would be up early tomorrow finishing, or rather starting, her homework even though it would be her fifteenth birthday. She placed the wool blanket at the foot of her bed and the milk on her nightstand in case she woke in the middle of the night. One more quick glance at her daughter and Ms. Higurashi left the room.

oooooooo

_It was dusk when the girl reached her house. The townhouse was ancient and covered in ivy. An attempt was made to make it look more like a cozy home then a crumbly mess by the flowers growing in pots that were on the stoop. She looked at it and mentally braced herself , preparing for a long night. Suddenly she heard the three unmistakable sounds of a gunshot, coming from her house. She ran up the remaining steps and burst into her living room then sprinted to the upper level. As she rounded the corner, she saw a sight so terrible it would haunt her for the rest of her life. In the bedroom her mother was sprawled on the ground, blood pouring out of the gunshots in her chest and her head. This horrifying view was multiplied when she saw who was the one holding the gun that had killed her __mom. It was her own father she saw, standing above the murdered woman, his own wife. His chest was heaving as if he had just run a marathon and his eyes had a crazed look in them. She saw him start to walk over to her and while she knew she should run, she stood, unable to move. He grabbed her and slammed her against the wall. When he let go she slumped to the ground, immobile. He took off his belt and started to whip her so hard that her white shirt was quickly turning red. Mercy came to her in the __form of police sirens. The last memory of her father would be him running out of the bedroom and through the back door, forever out of her life. The girl crawled to her mother, pulled her into her lap and started weeping, not even noticing when the police entered the room or when one knelt beside her, his hand on her shoulder. The last thing she saw before she blacked out was her mother's unseeing eyes staring up at the ceiling._

_The girl floated in and out of conciseness for the next five days. She could catch snatches of conversation in those few minutes when she regained her senses._

"_...sister?...gone...father?...prison...mother?...dead..."_

"_...home?"_

"_no...orphan..."_

"_...I'll...home...shrine..."_

_On the sixth day, she came fully out of her stupor. She sat up quickly then winced from the pain in her back. Suddenly, the memories flooded back and she could not hold back the tears that came forth. "At least she'll be free of daddy and his beatings and she'll be in heaven where she always belonged." she thought to herself. When the tears cleared and she looked around the room, she saw that she was in a white hospital room. To her left a door opened and a man walked in with a smile on his face. _

" _Hi! I'm Mr. Higurashi." He said brightly_

"_I'm Kagome." She answered._

**Six Years Later**

She stood in front of what she recognized as the Goshinboku tree, only this tree was somewhat different than the one back home. First off, there was a boy stuck to it, and he had dog ears! She thought that this was some crazy dream of hers, after all there was no way she could have fallen through the well and ended up in some faraway place that was most definitely not the place she had lived in for the past six years. Since this was some dream, she decided that she wasn't in any danger and concentrated on the boy. Who was he? What had happened to seal him to a tree? Why did he look as though he was something out of a fairy tale?

Maybe he was as alone as she was. Maybe he had a dead mother or a messed up father or a sister who abandoned you. Then again, maybe he had a loving family who was out searching for him, someone who cared for him, someone who had reached out to him as the Higurashi's had reached out to her. The girl smiled, because if not, she would become his helping hand. She knew the pain of love and the gift of love and would show him that the world is filled with people willing to help you, no matter who, or what, you are. Then again, if this was a dream she wouldn't really need to help him seeing as how he wasn't real. The girl smiled again and started to walk closer to the boy on the tree. It didn't matter if this was a dream or not, she would help him. She grasped the arrow in one hand and pulled, her eyes never leaving his face. The moment the arrow left his body, the was a pink flash and the girl was thrown backwards, eyes closed to protect herself against the blinding rose light. When she opened them again, the boy was standing over her, a smile on his face and an outstretched hand. She returned the smile as she grasped his hand and was pulled her to her feet.

She was ready. As much as she loved the Higurashi's, she needed to find her own way in the world, and she found that path, in the form of a silver-haired, dog-eared boy.

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Well I'm going to let you figure out what happened and interpret it in your own way, but if you really want to know what I was thinking of when I wrote it and how I interpreted it, feel free to ask. By the way, reviews are much appreciated.


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